The video backstory to the “World’s Greatest Music Collection on sale on Ebay” story which circulated earlier in the year:

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Fantastic.

Earlier this evening I was hanging out with my supervisor, discussing music storage formats and our evolving relationship with the decreasingly tangible but still vital ways we invest value in our music collections. Yes folks, we live a life of the mind around here. I announced I would start watching for the important moment when the temporal extent of my music collection exceeded my age. For the record, right now it’s at 2 1/2 months. (My music collection, not my age.) As I understand it, Paul Mawhinney’s collection is approximately lifetime length. And it’s largely vinyl.

If you think we live too much a life of the mind around here, here’s an escalation: I believe our society should support institutions which are sufficiently abstract but sufficiently funded by tax money that one would purchase and properly archive Mr. Mawhinney’s music collection.

See also: The Vinyl Anachronist, cranky, intermittent, vinlyic editorialist for the wonderfully named Perfect Sound Forever ezine. See this one, for example.